Let me tell you seeing a six hundred pound twelve foot tall rock monster go flying sixty feet into the air and then come crashing down is fucking terrifying. Gaia thought it was the best thing ever though and the way she kept staring at the moon as she did it made me think that she was having some crazy idea about reaching the damn thing. "Could you please focus on figuring out how to function without killing someone first!" I shouted at her after she crashed into the ground the fifth time in a row.-
See while getting up in the sky was easy for her , staying up there was considerably less so. To quote Newton "An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless an outside force is applied". In this case Gaia fell faster than she could refill her lungs and as a result had no force to stop and reverse her fall. I had this sneaking suspicion though that if she did this enough times she may actually manage to figure out how to actually fly , which was a terrifying idea. Can you even imagine a boulder shooting through the sky? It's fucking scary.-
Gaia looked entirely unrepentant at her attempts at reaching the moon but at least she started focusing on adjusting to her body again. Vulcan looked at her like she was mental the entire time she flew through the air and seemed to no longer feel bad for getting ignored. This was good because it meant it had left the guilt phase and entered the understanding one , fast learner this one. Seeing that I had hope of actually setting Vulcan straight attitude wise I sat at the entrance of the cave and watched Gaia work out how to move.-
I checked her level periodically and wasn't surprised to see it slowly going back up to where it was before she evolved. By the time she called it a night at about two am she had mastered her new method of movement at the low low cost of about two football fields worth of area absolutely demolished in all directions save the cave. A worthy price to pay in my opinion but then again I might not be an unbiased source. I finally got some sleep after that in my new favorite spot on Vulcan's back just under it's flowing mane.-
Things went fairly smoothly after that as we all woke up nice and early before spending the day honing both Vulcan and Gaia's moves and abilities. By the way shed skin was horribly broken in my opinion as the few times Vulcan got off a burn status on Gaia she would just shiver off a thin layer of energy and be good to go. Interestingly unlike sand veil , shed skin wasn't a passive ability but rather an active one that required Gaia to activate it which was different from the games but made perfect sense.-
Both Gaia's abilities were fairly easy to train since they only required her to get good at using them while Vulcan's inner focus ability was a pain in the ass to try and train. See unlike in the game where it would just passively allow a pokemon to avoid flinching it had a slightly different use in reality. Flinching is a reaction to pain or fear in reality so what the ability actually did was make it easier to ignore these types of things. To put it bluntly this ability was practically hand made for masochist and as a result needed fear and pain to train.-
To accomplish this I basically just had Vulcan and Gaia fight without any moves at all save rock polish on Gaia's part to fix her current issue with speed. Other than that the only thing worth mentioning was that Vulcan now had a custom move of it's own just like Gaia had sand bomb. This new move was frankly broken as it was similar to mud sport in that it weakens the power of a specific type. It was called magma coat and what it did was turn the floor literally into lava that cooled on top but stayed hot underneath.-
This made it so that when it first was used the opponent had a chance of being burned and after it hardened at the top it greatly reduced the power of grass type moves until it was dispelled or the energy wore off. Not going to lie this move had fantastic synergy with Gaia who had a major weakness to grass type moves. If it wasn't clear this move was a sort of extension from the move lava plume that I suggested to Vulcan since in my opinion lava moves were shamefully under utilized.-
It fucking lava of all things and yet every game only had that one move utilize it at all which I was very offended by. Vulcan was also offended when I told it this fact and wanted to fix this grave mistake personally. Gaia also had a second custom move that I found absolutely hysterical because of what it did. See the move was called stone grasp and what it did was create a giant hand out of rock that crushed whatever it was holding. It was funny because when you first looked at Gaia who has no arms or legs your first thought is definitely not "I should avoid letting that thing grab me".-
As a result when a huge aggressive stone hand wraps around you and squeezes you hard enough to turn you into a smoothie out of nowhere the expression you would likely make is hilarious. Why do I know this you may be asking? Well because the face Vulcan made after Gaia finally pulled it off had me dying of laughter. It was this picture worthy mix of shock , fear and confusion that left it with a hilarious expression. After about a week of training we were finally ready to leave the forest in my opinion.-
[Pokemon: Pupitar{Gaia}
LEVEL:50
Moveset: Bite(E) , Leer(A) , Sandstorm(E) , Iron defense(Egg Move)(E) , screech(E) , rock slide(E) , scary face(A) , thrash(A) , dark pulse(A) , payback(A) , rock polish(E) , metal claw(A) , sand bomb(A) , crunch(J) , stone grasp(N)
Variations: Royal , Shiny(stage 2)
Attack:93
Defense:95
Sp. Atk:70
Sp. Def:70
Speed:60
Ability: Sand veil(J) , shed skin(J)]
[Pokemon species: Entei
LEVEL:60
Moveset: Bite(E) , Leer(E) , Ember(A) , roar(A) , fire spin(A) , Stomp(E) , flamethrower(E) , sunny day(E) , crunch(E) , extrasensory(A) , lava plume(E) , magma coat(J)
Variations: none
Attack:140
Defense:100
Sp. Atk:115
Sp. Def:93
Speed:110
Ability: Inner focus(J)]
Each of them got some impressive upgrades all things considered and could definitely hold their own in a fight. Since I now had the power to not be a walking target I declared that we were ready to leave this small place and truly embrace the vast world. I packed all of my stuff in my bag and they pushed the boulder in front of the cave for the final time early in the morning as we began our journey into the unknown.